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Hiker ‘lost’ in Andes for 4 months was on the lam

Raul Gomez, found Sunday by a helicopter crew at a remote mountaineering hut, was facing arrest on child sex abuse allegations, an official says.

Uruguayan man Raul Fernando Gomez Circunegui, 58, shows his abdomen to rescuers in the shelter where he was found after disappearing four months ago in the remote Andes Mountains. (HANDOUT / REUTERS)

By Reuters

Mon., Sept. 9, 2013

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA—A story of remarkable human endurance in the snow-covered Andes has taken a sombre turn.

Authorities said Monday that a plumber from Uruguay who survived through the Southern Hemisphere’s winter after disappearing along Chile’s high-altitude border with Argentina was fleeing from the law.

An emaciated Raul Gomez was rescued Sunday by an Argentine helicopter crew and was recovering in a hospital more than four months after he was last heard of.

Repeated search efforts had been called off due to bad weather after they failed to turn up any sign of him amid the snow-covered peaks.

It wasn’t clear at first why a 58-year-old motorcyclist with no apparent mountaineering experience was so determined to walk across the Chilean high frontier. Gomez had travelled to Argentina and then Chile to meet up with other motorcyclists.

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He told people in the hospital he decided to return on foot in May after his motorcycle broke down.

But an official in the Chilean prosecutor’s office in Santiago confirmed Monday that Gomez is wanted in Chile’s capital for investigation of child sex abuse allegations.

A warrant was issued for his arrest on April 22, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Gomez’ hometown of Bella Union, Uruguay, the man’s mother, Irma Cincunegui, said she doesn’t believe the allegations.

“Raul is a good, hard-working man,” she said. “Everybody knows him in Bella Union, where he never had troubles with anybody.”

Gomez was finally discovered on Sunday at the Ingeniero Sardina Refuge, a small cabin 4,500 metres above sea level, by a pilot and two hydrology specialists who had flown up to measure snow levels. He said he had taken shelter there after getting disoriented by snowstorms.

He had been carrying a small amount of food and said he ate meagre supplies left by mountaineers in the refuge. When that ran out, he survived by capturing small animals.

“He lost 20 kilos (45 pounds). He apparently fed himself with mice and an owl or two,” a hospital spokesman Rodrigo Belert said.

“The truth is that this is a miracle,” San Juan Governor Jose Luis Gioja told the local Diario de Cuyo newspaper. “We let him talk to his wife, his mother and his daughter. ... I asked him: ‘Are you a believer?’ He told me, ‘No, but now I am.’ ”

Chile’s attorney general’s office must now consider whether to seek his extradition once he’s healthy enough to travel again.

Gomez’s mother called her son “a warrior,” and said she “always thought that he was alive.”

Why did he risk crossing such a high-altitude frontier with winter coming and hardly any equipment or supplies?

“Because he’s brave and daring,” she said. “Every vacation he would grab his motorcycle and take off on an adventure. Once he took his wife on the bike to Chile, but she said she would never make one of those trips again.”

Gomez was called an “excellent companion” by his co-worker Elias Acosta at the state water treatment plant in Bella Union. “We’re very happy that they found him.”

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